NASA: cut CCDev funding now, pay Russia more later

By Jeff Foust on 2011 October 21 at 8:39 am ET

As the Senate continues to debate a 2012 funding bill that includes NASA, one key question is whether the Senate will provide any additional funds for NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program above the $500 million currently in the legislation. In Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) earlier this week, the White House asked the Senate “to provide sufficient funding for the Commercial Crew Program”, without specifying what it considered specific. Now, a top NASA official warns that any savings from funding the program below the administration’s original request of $850 million would be offset by sending more money to Russia down the road.

Speaking at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Thursday, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver confirmed that NASA’s current plans for CCDev require $850 million in fiscal year 2012 in order to remain on track to have a domestic commercial crew transportation capability by the end of 2016. “If we don’t get full funding in 2012, this is at risk,” she warned.

A schedule slip, she said, would require spending more money on Russian crew transportation services. “One additional year of buying services from the Russians will cost the United States $450 million,” she said. Thus, she argued, it made more fiscal sense to spend an additional $350 million now—the difference between the Senate version and the administration’s request—on US companies than $450 million in mid-decade on Russian flight services. “Take it [the Senate mark] up $350 [million], giving it to US companies today, taking us up to the requested amount and giving us the best chance to be able to replace this foreign government service by 2016 while saving $450 million we would have to pay the Russians. That’s the choice.”

The Senate’s version of the 2012 appropriations bill is actually more generous to CCDev than the House version, which offers only $312 million for the program. If the House version were to pass, that could result is significant changes in NASA’s plans for the program. At a meeting of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) in Washington last Friday, Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters, said that if the agency received the $500 million in the Senate bill, it would likely proceed with the next round of the program, the Integrated Design Phase, although perhaps with some changes. “At the very macro level, $500 [million] is going to have an impact,” he said. “There are some ways you can see that we could move forward.” At the lower House level, though, he said, “we’d most likely pull the draft RFP” for the next CCDev phase. “We would revisit our acquisition approach at 312.”

“The less money you get,” he concluded, “the longer it’s going to take. The longer it takes, the more money it takes.”

32 comments to NASA: cut CCDev funding now, pay Russia more later

“The less money you get [for CCDev},” he concluded, “the longer it’s going to take. The longer it takes, the more money it takes.”

And this is the point that I fervently hope will be made in the upcoming hearing with so much evidence that even Hall will have cause to engage a few grey cells. Yes, sir, the excrement may be about to impact the blades of the air accelerator.

Relying on Soyuz is intolerable! If it was speed Nerdspace cheerleaders at NASA wanted, they might have picked one concept (like the CST-100) and funded it appropriately for very rapid development. Instead these confused and incompetent people spread resources among crank concepts and nothing is getting done. Such is the cronyism that has erupted in our new command and control economy. Congress should restrict funding and for NASA to down-select CCDev.

As many of you know, I’m not a Garver fan and do not support most of this administration’s space policies, but in this regard I fully agree. Funding U.S. company’s to develop human access to low Earth orbit and the ISS just makes too much sense to ignore. Not only does a healthy commercial human launch capability keep NASA money here in the U.S., but it attracts money from around the world and enables companies like Bigalow to further their investment in the first phase of commercial space laboratories.
But I would also caution that it should not come at the expense of NASA BEO activities like SLS and Orion/MPCV.

@ablastofhotair
It is no compliment to your intelligence (or lack their of) that you don’t realize the dirth of understanding you have about the implications alluded to in this article. Otherwise, you would see that your statements of:“Relying on Soyuz is intolerable!”
and“Congress should restrict funding and for NASA to down-select CCDev.”
together constitute an oxymoron.

But as I said in a prior thread, what can be expected from someone who has given us such pearls of “wisdom” as your statements in the past that:
The second stage of the first flight of F9 crashed into the ocean instead of making orbit. (That one alone made you a living legend!)
Not knowing the difference between a hardware specification and an undocumented pre-existing condition.
All supporters of commercial spaceflight are far-left radicals.
And others ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Relying on Soyuz is intolerable! If it was speed Nerdspace cheerleaders at NASA wanted, they might have picked one concept (like the CST-100) and funded it appropriately for very rapid development.

It was called Ares I. Ares I was the put every dime solution and it ate almost everything good in Constellation.

This isn’t the first time, the committees have been told to pay now or it will cost later. Griffin said the same thing of Constellation but even in the “good times”, they wouldn’t fund it at the proper levels. This is the core of the problem. We cannot depend on Congress to provide the money. Commercial companies are mature enough in spaceflight to take over leadership in developing spacecrafts for LEO. We need fair competition and a good bidding process not a rocket designed by congress.

“Instead these confused and incompetent people spread resources among crank concepts and nothing is getting done.”

Other than the 100% success so far of CCDev2 goals, pursuit of all of the secondary goals, and demonstration of complete viability of all of the participants, you’re right, they’re all crank concepts that aren’t producing anything. As it stands the 2016 date is further out than any of the CCDev2 contractors are estimating for their respective vehicles so the Scotty factor is already in place.

Seriously? You are supposed to be some sort of conservative, and you spout stuff like this:

“…they might have picked one concept (like the CST-100) and funded it appropriately for very rapid development.”

Here you are advocating that the government should be picking the winners in the marketplace. I hope your conservative friends aren’t reading what you write here, because they would be ashamed of you.

The best way to solve a market problem (i.e. crew transportation to LEO) is to promote competition, which is what the CCDev program does. You apparently haven’t learned the lesson of Ares-I, where anointing a design before it’s been validated is not only fiscally disastrous, it further delays the solution.

The Obama administration needs to fight for a larger NASA budget in order to help fund CCDev, the James Webb telescope and other NASA funded programs. And he needs to strongly criticize any Republican who is against raising the NASA budget. NASA creates jobs, technological advancement, and gains the administration crucial political capital in the extremely critical swing state of Florida.

Current polls in Florida show Obama in a statistical tie with Romney while pro-NASA Senator Bill Nelson is leading his potential Republican opponents in Florida by 13 to 14 points. Obama is going to need to be an absolute NASA and Commercial Crew fanatic during the next election cycle if he wants to secure Florida.

Marcel F. Williams wrote @ October 21st, 2011 at 12:16 pm
“Current polls in Florida show Obama in a statistical tie with Romney while pro-NASA Senator Bill Nelson is leading his potential Republican opponents in Florida by 13 to 14 points. Obama is going to need to be an absolute NASA and Commercial Crew fanatic during the next election cycle if he wants to secure Florida.”

you and Wind and Whittington keep saying things that are wrong hoping that the babble repeated long enough will turn out true.

There is NO Poll data that shows that Obama could do anything to get any of the “space pork” vote that went so heavily against him in 08…in 12. nor is there any data which shows that he (Obama) will lose or win FL based on space issues.

It looks like that Obama’s commercial crew scheme, which is looking less and less commercial the more it’s looked at, is proving to be politically unsustainable.”

Then you wrote this on your web site:

“The proposed commercial contract by NASA retains pretty much total control over the design and operation of “commercial” space craft by NASA. The only difference is the method by which the control is exerted,”

thats simply not true. Like the exaggerations you believed about Iraq you might wish that they were true, but you simply are substituting your wishes as facts.

Name a single instance where NASA has dictated the “design” Of commercial spacecraft? Just one Mark.

And he needs to strongly criticize any Republican who is against raising the NASA budget.

The President lost his ability to force legislation through congress in 2010. He is an inept deal maker. His penchant to blame anyone and everyone but himself has made him a laughing stock. That strategy won’t work. The country is borrowing 43% of NASA’s budget to begin with. Wouldn’t it be better to reform NASA, jettison non-core activities and fund NASA’s priorities? Funding 4 CCDev projects without firm expectations that any will reach orbit is foolhardy in the extreme. It is classic decision making, or lack thereof, for the NASA leadership cabal. There was only one winner of the Air Force tanker competition, or any other government procurement. Why should there be more than one winner for a rather modest NASA requirement? It’s crazy.

Current polls in Florida show Obama in a statistical tie with Romney

As destructive as he has been to NASA, it will be Florida’s unemployment rate that determines his fate.

There is NO Poll data that shows that Obama could do anything to get any of the “space pork” vote that went so heavily against him in 08…in 12. nor is there any data which shows that he (Obama) will lose or win FL based on space issues.

She told the cabinet that NASA’s commitment to KSC appears strong — the agency plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize the facility, if Congress appropriates the money — but that only “one or two” members of the state’s congressional delegation have shown strong fight for the Florida space center. She said she and the space industry need to do a better job convincing other members.

“For the greater number of our members of Congress, I don’t believe they get it,” Carroll said.

Nineteen of Florida’s twenty-five representatives in the House of Representatives are Republicans.

Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio are Florida’s two Senators. Nelson was a major advocate of the Space Launch System, so he must be one of the “one or two.”

Carroll’s remark suggests that one or both of the Space Coast’s representatives, Sandy Adams and Bill Posey, don’t care about space either. Which I could have told you by their votes in this session to cut NASA’s budget, and refusal to support any of the Obama administration’s proposals that would have created new space jobs here.

Outside of northern Brevard County, no one in Florida cares about the space program.

COTS does pay for flying, and SpaceX has already been paid $5M for it’s first COTS flight.

The next CCDev contract series encompasses “CTS preflight, flight, docking, on-orbit, undocking, and post flight operations across all ground and flight phases including nominal, off-nominal, and emergency modes“, so that goes all the way through flight certification.

The CCDev model follows the modern model of having “fly-offs” of real hardware, not vaporware awards like the Ares family.

Why are you dead-set against competition – is it because the companies you favor (or work for) can’t compete on a level playing field?

Since the space effort will, for a long time, be primarily a research and development effort, this tendency could lead to an unexpected, and perhaps undesirable, build-up of government-controlled facilities. Looking to the future, when the space frontier has been explored and is ready for economic development, we might well find the area pre-empted by the government, which would then have most of the personnel and facilities available. This would leave the nation almost no choice except to settle for nationalized industry in space …

As we step up our activities on the space frontier, many companies, universities, and individual citizens will become increasingly dependent on the political whims and necessities of the Federal government. And if that drift continues without check, the United States may find itself becoming the very kind of society that it is struggling against — a regimented society whose people and institutions are dominated by a central government.

The man called it — fifty years ago.

Cordiner was a staunch Republican, a good friend of Ronald Reagan and served as the head of the Republican Finance Committee for Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

One can only image what Cordiner would think of today’s political porkery by Republicans like Hutchison and Hall.

Changing ownership of the Shuttle program from the U.S. Government to a private company doesn’t change the technical challenges, so the cost structure stays the same. Where private companies can affect that is in lowering the cost of the material and tasks.

But when you have a custom built system, there is little that can be done to change the cost structure of the custom parts you buy, unless the private company starts building all the expensive parts itself – not likely with the Shuttle.

The other issue is profit. The private company has to make money, so let’s say that they need to make 20% profit on their revenue, which would allow 15% true profit while building up a 5% management reserve in case of unforeseen problems (delays of various sorts, “incidents”, etc.). So for the U.S. Government to see any cost savings, the private company has to lower their costs by more than 20%. Not an easy task for a completely custom-built transportation system.

Of course this is an academic question, since there is no need for the Shuttle anymore. It was instrumental in building the ISS, but now that it’s done we don’t need the abilities of the Shuttle to resupply the ISS, and there are no new space assembly programs on the horizon.

The U.S. Government has no reason to buy Shuttle flights, because there is nothing the U.S. Government needs to do in space that require the Shuttle.